Family Unity Through Philanthropy...

This is a good insight into how families can pull together and create even stronger bonds, as a family, and the impact that their cohesiveness through giving can not only have on the benefactors in the community, but also on the family and their personal relationships too.

As the piece explains, there are some good examples from around the world where unity and shared decision-making has worked so successfully that businesses have been run with joint control at the top.

On the other hand there are examples where lack of collective decision making can lead to conflict and it is important that frameworks are established early on in the business journey that deal with potentially s'sticky' moments (death, marriage, divorce, succession, leadership selection etc) and mitigate the risks of this happening. Such a framework will be of benefit to all family firms, irrespective of size, and potentially remove some of the risks too.

Shared values for the business in terms of strategy, future direction and management are also important and one way that processes can be developed and explored to create such a framework can be philanthropy as this piece clearly shows.

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Aside from the benefits it brings to the wider world, philanthropy can be an excellent training ground. One family member chief executive of a single family office quoted in the report described philanthropy as “very useful ... for teaching the next generation the value of wealth”. It was also seen as valuable in teaching responsibility and financial decision-making.